November is my favourite time to talk apricots, of course with an emphasis on our Apricot Jam! Christmas looms and my job is to glaze the ham and Apricot Jam is the key ingredient.

Legend has it that pagans celebrated with wild boar hams well before Christ and sacrificing boars to the Norse God, Freyr. As pagans were converted, hams were linked to St. Stephen’s Feast Day on Dec 26^th. Very soon, the ham became an essential part of our Christmas feast. It will be time for glazing your ham very soon!

Of course, we recommend that you use Aussie ham, especially now that we all need to support each other as never before. Here is my recipe to take you to ham heaven. Get the kids involved with the fat removal and cutting the diamonds – they love it and the result will be a true family team effort.

When ordering your Apricot Jam, don’t forget to include our Horseradish Mustard. It is the perfect match with the ham.

Have a wonderful Christmas feast.

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Our Gift Crates have a popular ‘rustic’ appeal and the various sizes and combinations feature every one of our products and suit all budgets.

Gift Packs

These are so varied, from colourful and folksy to stylish and elegant. They are also the ideal gift to take along to a Christmas party as a special thank you to the hosts.  Our  mustard packs are the perfect way to taste our six mustards, all suited to the exciting fare on your Christmas table. There are so many ways to use mustard and here is one of my favourites. To make a dip to grab everyone’s attention, simply mix equal parts Horseradish Mustard and our Apricot Jam. Sounds crazy but it is delicious!

Devil Packs

These packs are loved by children and adults alike. We wanted to support the ‘Save the Devil‘ appeal so we created our devils in two sizes, containing either jam or mustard. We give a percentage of every one we sell to the Appeal – it’s our way of doing our bit to help!                                       

Gift Hampers

Colourful, bright and full of delicious delights. You can select to suit the recipient’s palate – ‘Chilli Lovers’ and ‘Fruit a’ Fare’ to mention just two. If you would like a card included, please make sure you include the wording when ordering. Depending on which hamper you receive, every product will suit Christmas! Try Raspberry sauce over frozen yoghurt, Apricot Chutney with strong cheddar, Strawberry Chilli with white meats or with soft cheeses. The combinations are endless!

Make it a foodie Christmas and put a little of Tasmania’s finest on your table.

Please remember that this is not a normal delivery year. Australia Post recommends that 10^th December should be the cut-off date for delivery by Christmas, so please allow plenty of time.

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Christmas is going to exacerbate the delivery problem so we advise that orders received after December 10th may not arrive by Christmas (Australia Post advice).

If ever there was a year to spoil friends and family, this is it, so get your orders in soon!

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Chutneys originated in India. ‘Chatni’ was and is the name that meant ‘strongly spiced’. Typically they were made from fruit and or nut pieces, vinegar, sugar and spices and used mainly as an accompaniment to curries. The consistency of the fruit was chunky but soft after long and slow cooking. The hotter the curry, the sweeter the chutney needed to be to reduce the impact of the chilli heat.

In the late 1600s the British took them back to England. They were regarded as a luxury import and their popularity swept the nation. Everyone it seemed, had a connection with India at the time and wanted to be part of the ‘Raj’! Chutney-making fever hit Britain but poetic licence saw the heat levels reduced and the fruit increased giving rise to what we call a sweet chutney. Not until Indian and Pakistani immigration began in the sixties did the popularity of hot chutneys develop.

So how does a relish differ? Generally, they are thinner in consistency with more “pickled and vinegary” flavours. They usually contain vegetables rather than fruit and only one variety whereas chutneys are mostly fruit and often a mixture of fruits.

Perhaps you are more confused than ever! Well, that’s the way it has to be with the way the words are interchanged in this culinary climate.

What we do know is that, when Julie developed her recipe for our Tomato Relish, it could have been called ‘chutney but ‘Relish’ it is and it is our most popular product, sought after by chutney…. relish…lovers throughout the country and overseas. So, who cares about the term, just savour the taste!

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I grew up thinking that mustard was purely a condiment (which it is!) but it is so much more and I believe, the essential ingredient in so many dishes. It is the hero at BBQ time – in marinades, glazing meat and to add piquant interest to bring diners back for more.

History tells us that mustard was used in Roman times in powdered form. The Gauls developed the mustard we know today with Dijon becoming the heart of everything mustard. The word come from mostarde when it was made with verjuice or unfermented wine.

Today we have endless varieties of mustard from the forty different species and rigorous judgements are passed on the raw seed and the finished product.

Mustard quality is comparable with wine in that the seed quality used is as important as the grape to make top quality wine. When a mustard maker buys raw mustard seed, the quality reflects the price paid.

In short, to ensure the ‘crunch’ of a seeded mustard, the producer must guarantee 99% unbroken seed and that’s what we use. Anything less than that lowers the quality of the mustard and, of course, the consumer will be the decider, as long as they understand what they are paying for.

Quality mustard seed is non-negotiable if you want to produce a premium mustard.

Our Mild Wholeseed Mustard has the trademark ‘crunch’ of a top quality product

I love the crunch of our premium mustard, with its spicy kick. It’s so versatile that it finds its way on to our table most days. As you taste your way through our range, you might find this happening in your household too!

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Mum’s marmalade won me over during my late teens. It became one of the rituals that made breakfasts in our Ulverstone home so special. Dad never let a winter’s morning pass without porridge and prunes, or tea with milk heated for 23 seconds in the microwave! My favourite was toast, which Mum would place, hot, in an elegant rack on the table. I’d spread thick slices with delicious, old-fashioned local butter and her marmalade.

While Dad read and mused about headlines in the local paper, Mum kept tea and coffee topped up. Even on busy mornings, a shared breakfast was obligatory. The tradition has continued with my own children, who still sit down to a set table when they’re home. It means we start the day slowly, with good food and conversation – once everyone’s half-awake!

You can experiment with our Whisky Seville marmalade by trying it in a souffle (my mother likes to remind me that “the souffle should tremble, not the cook”), but I prefer the simpler option – toast at the breakfast table, with loved ones…and plenty of butter.

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We’re really proud to be able to support a number of Tasmanian suppliers in the production of our range. One type of supplier that you might not think of for a business like ours is our local butcher. 

In normal times, we enjoy hosting groups of locals and visitors from all corners of the globe for tastings, garden tours and gourmet BBQs. Our main man for meat for our BBQs is Phil at The Sausage Shop Butchery in Perth and his sausages receive nothing but rave reviews from our visitors. The fact that we haven’t been able to host groups recently has meant that we haven’t been able to provide as much support as we would like, to one of our amazing local businesses. 

The Sausage Shop Butchery is a busy butchery so we’re sure Phil probably isn’t missing our custom too much!  However, it’s reminder to all of us that as we move through this tricky period, supporting our local businesses is more important than ever… And on that note, we’re off to collect some of Phil’s sensational pork ribs. Phil makes some of the best sausages around and he often has excellent chops but ribs are hard to beat! 

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Perhaps a little after toilet paper started to lose its appeal, came the panic buying of vegetable seed and seedlings. That was our catalyst; we could help some of the members of our community to get a vegetable garden underway by providing seedlings as inspiration and the start of their ‘patch’.

Photo credit: The Mercury Newspaper

Our nursery and potager garden normally provide all the salads and vegetables for our group lunches. With the travel bans of COVID-19, the groups were gone but the facility remains. So, a target of 3000 seedlings was plucked from the air and we started sowing… and sowing… and sowing.

Six weeks later we met the target and delivered them to Hobart. MONA is leading the charge in encouraging people to grow vegetables through a new ‘Victory Gardens’ project. “Dig up a lawn and plant veges” is the mantra. Under their banner is the ’24 Carrot Garden’ project, establishing gardens in schools and communities to help kids to learn to grow, cook and eat healthy produce. With 24 Carrot Garden’s provision of seeds and seedlings to individuals and community gardens, we thought we could help.

We proudly contributed our 3000 seedlings across 10 different varieties and will look forward to keeping in touch with the project to see the positive benefits of vegetable gardening being enjoyed in Tassie’s communities.

Hopefully our initiative will provide some short-term help and encourage gardening in the long term.  We were even fortunate enough to receive a letter of thanks and support from Her Excellency the Governor of Tasmania, who has visited us here in the past. It was wonderful for our team to read the kind words of support for our efforts in what Her Excellency noted as ‘such a worth cause’, thanking our team for ‘the wonderful example we have set’.  It made us all very proud to receive this from someone who is so focused on the wellbeing of our Tasmanian community. 

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I grew up in South Africa and was the youngest of three boys. At the age of 11, life was wonderful but the family budget was lean. Never did I complain except when it came to my bike. “Mum, I have to have a new bike”, I announced one morning, only to be met with motherly explanation that I’d have to earn the money to pay for it!

A little background on Mum. She was a passionate gardener and that passion led her to start growing African violets to boost the family income. She was also a semi-professional soprano. Music would beam from her valve portable radio in the greenhouse, flooding the garden. She taught me how to stop, listen, absorb.

Mum building her own greenhouse.

African violets and propagation 

Mum’s African violets business grew into a very successful enterprise. I had no interest in any of this until the carrot was offered. “Dad will make a propagation shed out of old packing crates, you will propagate plants, pot them, nurture them and sell them at the local general store,” she instructed.

Seven months is an eternity at that age but that’s how long it took for the cuttings to grow and to score my first sale of 15 plants. Six months later, I bought the bike of my dreams and continued to dig in the soil. The love of plants progressed to the love of nature in any of its magnificent and varied forms. Mum never lost her interest in African violets. When she died, I took her last remaining violet home to keep her legacy alive.

Mum’s African violet business became a success and inspired my love of gardening.

Mum’s legacy lives on

Today I’m at my happiest in our garden at ‘Ericvale’. The tasting room for our condiments and sauces is nestled among the beautiful topiaries, plants and trees we grow and sell. You can find me planting seedlings in the tunnel house (classical music blaring from my portable speaker) or showing people around our topiary nursery. The garden continues to evolve and it’s a story in its own right – a story that mightn’t have begun without the inspiration from Mum.

– Tim

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Given many Tasmanians are doing the right thing by staying home, we’ve received a number of calls about the idea of operating a local delivery service. So, for the month of May, we’re going to give it a try and if you like it, we’ll certainly see if we can continue to offer it throughout the period of restrictions relating to COVID-19.  If the service is well-received over the coming weeks, we may be able to expand deliveries to other parts of our island state.

Where are we delivering to?

This is the first time we’ve offered deliveries to your door, so we’re keeping it local to start with. From home base at Evandale, we’re going to offer this service across an area covering Launceston and surrounds, including Newnham and Legana to the northern side of the city, Hadspen to the west, St Leonards to the east and Evandale, Perth and Longford to the south. We have added a map below. If you’re not sure if your home falls into the patch, give Tim a call… his arm is relatively easy to twist!

Is there a minimum purchase?

Yes, we will offer free delivery for purchases of $35 or more.

How do I order?

Tim’s mobile is 0409131644. You can call to place your order, make your payment via credit card and provide any details we need for delivery.

For how long is this available?

We’ll offer free deliveries to the Launceston area until the end of May and update via our website and social media if we are able to continue to offer it into June and beyond.

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